http://www.osnews.com/story/11575/Solaris_Express_Community_Release_Build_20_Released Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2010, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:33:25 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?18389 http://osnews.com/thread?18389 Any way to upgrade from an existing SX build without going through a complete reinstall yet? Otherwise, methinks this ~2 month release cycle is getting to be more of a pain in the ass than it's worth. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 17:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (orestes) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18390 http://osnews.com/thread?18390 I wonder how significant a step each of these Solaris Express releases towards the next version of SunOS. For instance how many were there between SunOS 5.9 and 5.10 (Solaris 10)? How does the release cycle go?

I know Solaris Express is considered a beta release. Is the Solaris Express builds comparable to the FreeBSD CURRENT branch in stability? Mon, 15 Aug 2005 17:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (atici) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18396 http://osnews.com/thread?18396 That came of slightly harsher than I intended. But seriously people, how hard is it to implement a rolling, in-place update system these days? The BSDs do it, Plan 9 does it, Linux does it so well I don't even need to do a full reboot to swap out kernels on a running system. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 17:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (orestes) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18398 http://osnews.com/thread?18398 Yeah, I think this is a legitimate question too; how does one upgrade Solaris without having to do a complete re-install? I'm running Solaris 9 on my SPARC machine, for fun, but I never thought about upgrading and all that (it's just a wannahave, that SPARC, really).

So, Solaris experts, how does one upgrade to a new Solaris release? Mon, 15 Aug 2005 17:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18404 http://osnews.com/thread?18404 As an External Beta Tester for Sun, I worked on Solaris Express releases from August 2003 to March 2004, and Beta Builds from 51 to 72 until February 2005. There are also Builds that are sent to a select group of Beta Testers, Build 74 was not available to the "public".

I think it will be some time before Solaris 11 is released. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 17:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Robert Escue) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18405 http://osnews.com/thread?18405 Have you tried booting from the CD or DVD of the new release and go through the motions as if you are going to install Solaris and select "Upgrade Install". Mon, 15 Aug 2005 17:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Robert Escue) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18407 http://osnews.com/thread?18407 Have you tried booting from the CD or DVD of the new release and go through the motions as if you are going to install Solaris and select "Upgrade Install".

Okay, thanks. So, there's no way to ie. do something similar to apt-get dist-upgrade? because I think that's what the original commenter was thinking about. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18408 http://osnews.com/thread?18408 Indeed it was, specifically in reference to the Solaris Express program. Upgrades to the main Solaris releases are an entirely different animal. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (orestes) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18409 http://osnews.com/thread?18409 ZFS will be here before 5.11, as well as Linux binary compatibility. These builds are not meant to be used on a workstation anyways, that's what the official Solaris 10 release is for. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18415 http://osnews.com/thread?18415 If you are using a JumpStart server, you can make a profile for an upgrade install and do it over the network. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Robert Escue) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18426 http://osnews.com/thread?18426 Now this is what I call a real Dumb ass idea. Releasing stuff every two months. Am I dumb enough to spend 2 days configuring Solaris to my taste and all of a sudden throw everthing and start all over again. Isn't there pkg-get coudn't SUN release the updates. If the answer is no and they think this ploy of theirs would work, forget about it. Free is one thing, you can get linux & freeBSD for free too. However I never saw such idiotic license terms. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 19:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (anand78) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18427 http://osnews.com/thread?18427 "idiotic license terms."

With Sun or BSD and Linux? Mon, 15 Aug 2005 19:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18439 http://osnews.com/thread?18439 What's the difference between Solaris Express Build 20 and Solaris 10 3/05?

Is Express the "open source" one and 3/05 just an update to the "commercial" Solaris 10?

And then there's OpenSolaris which seems to be a source version to compile yourself - or is it the parts that have been released and ported to Linux? Mon, 15 Aug 2005 21:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18442 http://osnews.com/thread?18442 Solaris Express is the pre-release testing program for the next release of Solaris. Solaris 10 3/05 is a maintenence release of the current Solaris. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 21:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (orestes) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18444 http://osnews.com/thread?18444 Compare them to Linux like this:

Solaris 10 3/05 is like kernel 2.4.22 which was an update to the stable 2.4 series.

Solaris Express is like Linux kernel 2.5.x, which was a dev release working towards 2.6.

If you are a user, you want Solaris 10, if you are a developer, you may be interested in SX. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 21:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Adam S) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18449 http://osnews.com/thread?18449 http://www.whacked.net/2005/06/21/confused-so-was-i/ Mon, 15 Aug 2005 22:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18450 http://osnews.com/thread?18450 That came of slightly harsher than I intended. But seriously people, how hard is it to implement a rolling, in-place update system these days? The BSDs do it, Plan 9 does it, Linux does it so well I don't even need to do a full reboot to swap out kernels on a running system.

These releases are not for normal users, they're for developers or technology enthusiasts. If you're using OpenSolaris you can BFU between releases. If you have Solaris 10 GA installed, you can upgrade to an SX release. However, non-BFU upgrades between SX releases are not supported, and for many good reasons.

These releases are not intended for production systems or systems where your data is valuable. They are intended only for testing and development. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 22:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (binarycrusader) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18454 http://osnews.com/thread?18454 I left the land of the normal user a long, long time ago.

1. BFUing would be wonderful if it weren't for the fact that it leaves your package database FUBAR.

2. The jump to the new boot architecture is pretty much the only time I'd say the forced reinstall to upgrade was warranted. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 22:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (orestes) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18455 http://osnews.com/thread?18455 I left the land of the normal user a long, long time ago.

Then you should understand better.

1. BFUing would be wonderful if it weren't for the fact that it leaves your package database FUBAR.

Yes, that's a necessary part of BFU'ing. But as these are not meant as production systems or places where you keep valuable data, then you shouldn't be concerned about that.

2. The jump to the new boot architecture is pretty much the only time I'd say the forced reinstall to upgrade was warranted.

You're weclome to that opinion, but it unfortunately cannot be so. The forced reinstall is necessary because there are no guarantees of compatability between releases. If you want a stable updateable system you should be running Solaris 10 GA, not the Solaris Express releases.

From the sound of it, these developer code snapshots are not for you. I suggest you look elsewhere. I don't see these restrictions changing, and I think they're totally reasonable. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 22:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (binarycrusader) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18457 http://osnews.com/thread?18457 Any way to upgrade from an existing SX build without going through a complete reinstall yet? Otherwise, methinks this ~2 month release cycle is getting to be more of a pain in the ass than it's worth.

These releases are not for users wanting conveniently updateable or upgradeable systems. They're unstable code snapshots designed for development and testing. Besides, no one said you have to upgrade just because a new release is out. You can keep running the old one. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 23:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (binarycrusader) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18459 http://osnews.com/thread?18459 Let's put this in another light. If the SX community releases are going to continue to be the primary scaffolding for OpenSolaris, someone had better be working on a sane, if somewhat unstable, upgrade path between releases. Having to choose between continously leveling and rebuilding your install or using a system which renders your packaging system next to useless is not going to cut it in the long term. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 23:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (orestes) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18461 http://osnews.com/thread?18461 Let's put this in another light. If the SX community releases are going to continue to be the primary scaffolding for OpenSolaris, someone had better be working on a sane, if somewhat unstable, upgrade path between releases. Having to choose between continously leveling and rebuilding your install or using a system which renders your packaging system next to useless is not going to cut it in the long term.

This system which supposedly "won't cut it in the long term", has been in place for years. So I have to disagree rather strongly. And notably, this will not be the "primary scaffolding" for OpenSolaris.

There will be other distributions available for OpenSolaris that track these releases, when there are they will have their own update or packaging systems.

It is highly impractical to expect SUN to test these "code snapshot" releases and be able to guarantee upgradeability between these releases. That is why BFU exists.

At this point Solaris Express is still tied to SUN's binary update system(s). What you want is better served by source based distributions like SchilliX in the future. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 23:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (binarycrusader) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18463 http://osnews.com/thread?18463 Actually Sun does have a way to upgrade a release without reinstalling, it is called a Maintenance Update (MU). Say for example I wanted to take a Solaris 8 6/00 install to 2/02, there are two ways I could do it:

1. Use the 2/02 media and perform an upgrade install, or
2. Apply Maintenance Update 7

Why Sun does not provide this for Solaris Express releases is beyond me. That is something you might want to ask a Sun employee or two. Mon, 15 Aug 2005 23:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Robert Escue) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18469 http://osnews.com/thread?18469 The main reason that we don't do MU releases for Solaris Express is quite simple.

An MU consists of patches. Patches make an assumption about the interface stability, that is not necessarily true during pre-release builds. In going from 5.10 to 5.11, it is possible that things might change that a patch cannot handle.

Thus a pre-release Solaris does not have patches.

Alan. Tue, 16 Aug 2005 00:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tpenta) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18471 http://osnews.com/thread?18471 For all of you confused about in-place upgrades please see Live Upgrade:

http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/liveupgrade/

Live Upgrade has been bundled with Solaris since 9 Tue, 16 Aug 2005 01:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bascule) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18472 http://osnews.com/thread?18472 I know Solaris Express is considered a beta release. Is the Solaris Express builds comparable to the FreeBSD CURRENT branch in stability?

Nope. Not even close for me.

Even DragonFly (deep beta) is more stable than SX builds. At least in my experience. I have unsuccessfully tried the last three SolX builds on several different machines and none of them currently still have SolX on them... Tue, 16 Aug 2005 01:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18473 http://osnews.com/thread?18473 It is highly impractical to expect SUN to test these "code snapshot" releases and be able to guarantee upgradeability between these releases. That is why BFU exists.

Perhaps I am being just a bit demanding, but that doesn't mean that the situation could not be improved upon.

Is there any technically compelling reason why BFU couldn't go ahead and update the package database for consistency while it's doing its thing? Tue, 16 Aug 2005 01:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (orestes) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18474 http://osnews.com/thread?18474 Even DragonFly (deep beta) is more stable than SX builds. At least in my experience. I have unsuccessfully tried the last three SolX builds on several different machines and none of them currently still have SolX on them...

Ah...now that was certainly not true before the first public release of DragonFly. I should know, I was involved in the DragonFly community at that time. Corrupt files, random kernel panics, etc.

Of course, you're not guaranteed any type of stability with SX builds, that's why the GA release exists. It would be greatly appreciated if you would report any issues that you did have so they can be addressed / fixed. Tue, 16 Aug 2005 01:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (binarycrusader) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18475 http://osnews.com/thread?18475 Perhaps I am being just a bit demanding, but that doesn't mean that the situation could not be improved upon.

I'm not saying the situation could not be improved, I just don't think it's practical expect what you are expecting.

Is there any technically compelling reason why BFU couldn't go ahead and update the package database for consistency while it's doing its thing?

There are several from what I've heard. For example, between SX builds, there is no guarantee that the incoming upgrade will map to any existing package. Additionally, at current the BFU process for OpenSolaris is not capable of building packages.

Last, from what I know, BFU is somewhat akin to extracting a large tarball over an existing filesystem. For speed and other reasons, I personally believe it's not technically practical to update the package database. It would significantly slow down the BFU process and the build process.

I suggest you discuss this issue instead on the Opensolaris Discuss forum at:
http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/forum.jspa?forumID=13

There will likely be people there better equipped to explain the complications behind what you're asking for, and whether or not they have plans to change it, or really practically speaking can. Tue, 16 Aug 2005 01:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (binarycrusader) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18488 http://osnews.com/thread?18488 So how long until OpenSolaris is considered "stable", stable enough for a production environment? (Officially, not just "I'm running it and it's fine".) Tue, 16 Aug 2005 05:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18497 http://osnews.com/thread?18497 Did you file bugs at http://bugs.opensolaris.org ? What are the bugids?

We can't fix what you don't report, and it is hard to assess your claims about stability without some substantive evidence. Tue, 16 Aug 2005 07:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dbprice) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18499 http://osnews.com/thread?18499 it's still "technology", not "a product". they didn't even opensource _everything_ yet, but only those parts, that they got past their lawyers at that point.

enough to make a bootable system with reasonable effort though (see SchilliX)

you can probably consider OpenSolaris "stable", when it's a "product", ie. someone can build it, run mkisofs over the result and get an install cd. and that will still take a while.
doesn't make the code less useful at this point though: it's nice to have driver source around, or libc - you can look for weird behaviour, you can write new drivers based on existing ones and generally figure out, what solaris is doing - but that's still "developer stuff", not "webserver admin stuff" Tue, 16 Aug 2005 07:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18500 http://osnews.com/thread?18500 "developer stuff", that is the whole point - to encourage developers to jump on board and heap develop Solaris.

You are right, there are parts that are going to be replaced with lawyer friendly code, hence the reason that Solaris 11 is still atleast 2 years away - but by that time, hopefully, drivers would have reached a decent level and looking glass will be rock solid and stable - its already reached 0.7 already! Tue, 16 Aug 2005 07:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18512 http://osnews.com/thread?18512 Where can I see changes made in it? Tue, 16 Aug 2005 11:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18514 http://osnews.com/thread?18514 What do you actually mean (or think you mean) by "solaris release"?

Upgrading from Solaris 8 to Solaris 9 can be done in a rolling fashion in MANY ways, and even more from Solarsi 9 to 10.

If you ask, how to upgrade between releases of Solaris Express, well, you should be aware that Solaris Express is released for the purpose of bug-finding and fixing. It's a beta of a future product, in a way. In that sense, rolling upgrades between SE are not relevant for the purpose of testing the system's functionality. In fact, it is better to have a SE release installed from scratch. Tue, 16 Aug 2005 11:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mario) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18519 http://osnews.com/thread?18519 I guess you have too much time in hand or you have never installed Solaris. Are you kidding, can't we test the bugs if we just upgraded stuff.
I guess this is one of the retarded moves by one of the Sun Employees who has short term vision of things. Tue, 16 Aug 2005 12:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (anand78) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?18525 http://osnews.com/thread?18525 I totally forgot about Live Upgrade, which has been available since Solaris 8 2/02 Release. The problem is you need some free disk space in order to install the Boot Environment:

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/806-7933/6jgp914ap?a=view

For many this is not an option due to insufficient disk space. Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Robert Escue) Comments